Four star West Ham transform from shambles to champagne

Former Labour prime minister Harold Wilson – a big Huddersfield Town fan – once famously commented that a week was a long time in politics. So what would he have made of a month in football – or more particularly West Ham’s February?

Talk about tales of the unexpected – five goals from Kevin Nolan to make amends for his two red cards around Christmas, four wins from Sam Allardyce to make amends for, well, quite a lot; what next, Paul Ince joining the coaching staff?

Ok, maybe that one’s stretching credibility a bit, but let’s face it, after the horror show of January, even the most incurably optimistic of fans is unlikely to have predicted four wins in February – and surely the victory over Southampton is the most impressive of the lot.

Against Swansea in game one, West Ham were confronted by a team who seemed to be playing with the safety catch on, and who produced a performance so limp that it cost the manager his job.

Game two against Aston Villa pitted them against the team with one of the worst home records in the Premier League, and it was not so much a game of two halves as of three on-target shots – two of which, handily, fell to Nolan.

Game three, against Norwich, was about as comfortable for players and entertaining for spectators as passing a kidney stone, until two late goals – one deflected – won it. But beating Southampton in game four?

This was something different – this was the team who ran rings around West Ham the last time they met, and who some people say could provide the spine of the England World Cup team, so when Maya Yoshida headed them into an early lead, it looked like West Ham faced a challenge far bigger than any of the three previous games.

But with goals from Matt Jarvis, Carlton Cole and Nolan, they rose to it in spectacular fashion, for the perfect month. If West Ham’s first half of the season left them with a mountain to climb in the second, then February’s results have seen them arrive at the first camp ahead of schedule with oxygen to spare.

The fact it has been achieved without the suspended Andy Carroll – remember Chico Flores’s Dying Swan act? – makes it all the more impressive.

Over four weeks, West Ham have gone from downward spiral to upwardly mobile, so March’s challenge is to build on February’s achievements with a decidedly mixed bag of fixtures. Away at Everton (never a rewarding destination), Stoke and Sunderland, and home to Hull and Manchester United – these are harder games than the last four, making every point already secured all the more valuable.

Even for a manager as battle-hardened as Allardyce, January’s results and criticism must have been hard to swallow. But four weeks, four wins and 12 points later, he could soon be tasting Manager of the Month champagne. As I said, a month – that’s a long time in football.